I’ve been sitting on this very valid question for a few days, because I see what you’re saying, Lokathor, I just disagree with it. But before I came out in disagreement, I wanted to organize my thoughts a bit better. 

To be clear: I’m not disagreeing that what we’re seeing is an unhealthy relationship. What I take exception to in your comment is “highly abusive relationships shouldn’t be used for comedy.”

The easy argument for me is to say I’m going to send you “Straight to the moon,” “one of these days, Alice” and hope that you know I’m referencing the Honeymooners, which got ripped off for The Flintstones, which kickstarted prime time television animation. 

The more difficult argument is the one that ties into why I don’t jump into the Shipping fan community as much as I’m exposed to its inner workings: that stuff isn’t in the show, it’s being brought to the show. When talking about Breaking Bad on this week’s Operation Kino with Patches, I kept saying that the finale is the cap to the final season – it closes off all speculation by providing answers to certain questions. Like, when we thought that Amon could be Bumi early on in Book One – that theory is valid until the show reveals that it Amon isn’t Bumi.

In this particular case, we’re referring to the Bolin/Eska scenes as comedy because that’s how they are being written and acted and put into the show. We’re referring to it as comedy because that’s what the show is presenting it as (even as a terrifying Eska zooms towards Varrick’s boat, the last line is a joke).

Without getting into issues of sexism and how relationships are portrayed in American Cartoons (hint: not well, historically), the reason I’m personally still treating Eska/Bolin as a comedy is the show is treating it that way. We have world-wide, life-or-death problems, Bolin’s inability to assert his feelings is a side issue, much like if Mako kissing Korra while dating Asami was a side issue. We’re welcome to speculate on these side issues, but applying the real world’s rules to a story world is DIFFERENT – but still VALID – critical ground than where we usually are. 

In short, I don’t want to disabuse you from thinking about portrayals of emotionally abusive relationships in media. There’s stuff worth poking around in there. However, if the show is treating Bolin/Eska as a comedy element with the tone it adapts during those scenes, our initial critical reaction is going to be acknowledging the show wants us to laugh at Eska making Bolin bow to her. I’m not going to feel bad for that, I’m not the Nickelodeon tone police. 

Now, if you disagree that this is funny and think that gender-swapping doesn’t work to make something so obviously abusive funny, I can understand and sympathize with that. I also think it’s completely valid and as much of a problem as Asami’s inaction in her own romance last Book. And much like I couldn’t get on Asami’s side in Book One, there’s nothing in my mind that makes me think Team Avatar lets Bolin enter an unhealthy and forced marriage.

Thank you SO MUCH for making me take three days thinking about this. I am not being sarcastic. It was great.

-Da7e-